


Memories

by Crazythatcounts



Category: Hanna Is Not A Boy's Name
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-11
Updated: 2013-04-11
Packaged: 2017-12-08 03:28:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/756484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crazythatcounts/pseuds/Crazythatcounts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hanna and Zombie go for a walk and have a quiet moment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memories

They'd been talking – and walking – for roughly an hour. Hanna took a brief moment to wonder if he'd actually inhaled or exhaled at all as he talked, but the conversation at hand drew him away from those thoughts and back into his talking mindset. The street they were on was quiet, silent past the redhead's rambles and the soft crunch of snow beneath their shoes as they meandered down the lonely sidewalk.

That morning, Hanna had woken to see a thick layer of frosty white outside the window. Of course, the first thing he did was suggest that, even though the zombie wasn't fond of anything qualified as "wet", they go walking in it. And by suggesting, of course, Hanna meant that he was going walking and the zombie was welcome to come, and of course the zombie would because that was simply what he did. He followed, and he enjoyed it, even if his face didn't show it.

The trek itself had started with something of a purpose – visiting Worth. Hanna had started talking about how he used to walk in the snow with Lamont, but he could never seem to get Worth to step outside, and somehow the conversation, and their destination, spiraled out of their control. Snow stories spawned other stories and somewhere around Hanna's story about nearly offending a clan of wood nymphs with his inability to keep any sort of plant alive (even their enchanted Christmas present) the pair took a different turn, and their walk became much like Hanna's train of thought – ambling and heading nowhere in particular.

An hour in, however, and Hanna found the streets were beginning to look rather familiar, and the conversation stilled. Of course, it was hard not to notice, and the zombie felt he should address the sudden silence from his companion. "Hanna…?"

"What? Oh, sorry, Stetson. Just realized something. I'm good." Hanna grinned, and though it wasn't faked or pushed, there was something behind it that wasn't entirely grin producing. "Just realized where we were. It's no big deal."

The zombie glanced around their surroundings. Other than the fact that everything was white, nothing was recognizable. They were in a small neighborhood, with open streets and the occasional patch of evergreen trees covered in soft, slowly melting snow. "Where are we?" The zombie asked, briefly considering putting his guard back up because any place Hanna recognized probably meant some sort of trouble.

"My old neighborhood." Hanna chuckled. A beat of silence resulted as the zombie processed the information, glancing around them again and feeling odd yet warm at the idea of seeing where Hanna grew up. It was like seeing baby pictures or home videos, and with Hanna, even those were scarce. "You remember how I was talking about walking with Lamont a little while ago? I kinda did the same thing with him 'cause I'd start walking and my brain'd process familiar places and suddenly I'd be walking my route home from school and we ended up here, too, but then I wasn't exactly in the best of shape so we kinda hightailed it, so I guess you could say this is the first time I've been here in years."

"Oh." The zombie's voice rumbled against the silence of the snow.

"Yeahh." Hanna shrugged, moving on from where they had come to a standstill on the sidewalk. "I kinda miss living here a little, but at the same time it feels a little weird to be coming back, kinda like going home after you've moved off from college or something. Kinda cool, though, that I'm visiting here with you and all."

There was silence after that, soft yet thick, and with a strange sense of belonging even with Hanna's talkative nature. It was comforting, to say the least, so the zombie said nothing about it, simply walking in stride with the redhead, wondering if he was cold and wondering how long it would take to get back to the apartment.

He almost walked right past Hanna before he noticed the redhead had stilled. They were staring at a house. An apparently abandoned, rather old house that looked mildly Victorian in structure, with siding that used to be white, a dark roof, and the remains of a white picket fence between them and the yard. The windows were either boarded up or broken in, and there seemed to be a fungus growing on the walls. Hanna was staring at the house, and the zombie noticed that it didn't seem that Hanna was actually seeing anything.

In fact, he was. He simply wasn't seeing anything right in front of him.

_"Hanna!" The clack of a screen door closing, tromping of boots on the old, creaky stairs. It smelled like snow. "Hanna, wait for me, honey. Come back over here and put on your coat and we can go, okay?"_

_"Mommy, when we get back can we build a snowman, mommy? Or-or an igloo? If we build an igloo can I sleep in it tonight mommy?" The coat slipped over his jumper and it was warm, like her hands ruffling his hair and it smelled vaguely of cocoa and a warm fire._

_"Oh, Hanna, you can't sleep in the igloo. You'll get too cold." The snow was crunchy that day. He liked hearing it crunch as he hopped through it, rabbit like._

_"I won't get cold, mommy! I can bring my sleeping bag and a lamp and we can build a fire and it can be like camping only in snow and the gate will keep any bad things out from eating me in the night!"_

_"We'll see, honey, we'll see." The gate always creaked, especially in the winter when the hinges got cold. He'd come to dread that sound. "Now, come along, Hanna. Hanna?"_

"Hanna?" The heavy weight of a hand on his shoulder and his name in that deep voice brought him back from the memory, even as the gate in his mind swung closed and the vision of his mother and his younger self faded into the snow.

"What? Oh, hey. Spaced out on ya there." Hanna grinned, sheepishly, and a chuckle escaped him.

"Is this…?" The zombie didn't finish his sentence. He didn't need to.

"Yeah. It's my old house. It's pretty busted up, now. Worth'd probably like it, considering the grime. We should gather a specimen for him to grow." Hanna laughed. His hand went up to meet the one on his shoulder. "C'mon, let's go, Iago. I bet if we keep heading this way we'll wind back up at Worth's sooner or later. We always do." Hanna started down the street, the hand holding the zombie's now dragging the undead man away from the dilapidated wreck that was Hanna's old place.

"Oh, yeah, Casio." Hanna turned to walk backwards for a moment, hands straying to his pockets and a rosy cheeked grin on his face. "Thanks."

"For what?" The zombie asked, but there was no answer, as Hanna had turned back to walking and talking. The zombie felt a soft twitch of a smile breaking across his lips, and he shook his head. That was how it was with Hanna. Reflecting and remembering a moment in time, but never, not once, looking back.

And as the pair walked through the soft and silent witness to it all, the zombie realized that he was perfectly okay with that.


End file.
